Unsure Whether to Self-Disclose Your Eating Disorder?
Are you feeling confused whether or not you should open up to people about your eating disorder?
Perhaps you have and it was not received in a kind, understanding manner.
This is not uncommon and you are not alone. It can feel really isolating to have disordered and to not have the platform, or people to connect with over your experience.
Many individuals have a belief that in order to overcome disordered eating they need to come clean to the people in their life. This is both true and not true. Though confiding in other people can be an incredibly cathartic experience, there are times when disclosing your eating disorder can do more harm than good.
If you are reading this and connecting to the subject in some way, you can probably think of a handful of people in your life that would not receive a disclosure about your disordered eating habits well. This can happen for many reasons some of which include; there is stigma around disordered eating, an individual has their own disordered eating and has yet to look into it, they are not in a place to really listen to what you are telling them.
Self-disclosure of an eating disorder is not necessary in all of your relationships
As a result, it is okay to disclose to certain people and not to others. While working with clients with disordered eating, we often introduce the concept of the three layers of relationships. There is the innermost circle where it is safe to talk about deeper emotions, feelings and beliefs, there is the middle circle where it is safe to talk about the everyday struggles, and there is the outermost circle where the conversation is based around daily relatable happenings such as work and weather. You may find when applying this contextually to your relationships that you are able to place certain people on certain circles. By doing so, you may also have a better understanding of which relationships are safe enough to talk about your eating disorder.
Here are a few signs that a relationship is a safe place to open up about your eating disorder:
Listening - you have developed a relationship that inherently acknowledges the importance of listening before responding.
Trusting - the relationship has a foundation of trust. This is exemplified when you think about disclosing something personal to that person and you have a safe feeling that the information you give them will be held in confidence.
Both emotionally connected and emotionally disconnected - what I mean by this is that the person is empathetic and caring. Though they are able to maintain their own emotional distance. A good example of this would be with mother and daughter. It is not uncommon that when a daughter develops an eating disorder she feels stifled to open up to a family member (mother in this example) because they know that their mother will be too emotionally connected and may respond with defensiveness, dismissal, or justification, rather than just listening
They have done their own work - many times, when other individuals have spent time in therapy and taken the time to really look at themselves, they have the emotional capacity to have compassion towards behaviors like disordered eating because they can relate in a compassionate way, even if disordered eating habits are not what they have worked through
Talking about your eating disorder can be incredibly healing
Navigating relationships and self disclosure of an eating disorder can be incredibly healing. When someone feels safe in their self disclosure and it is met with compassion and empathy, they open the door to having support even outside of the therapy room. These conversations can be hard to navigate at times due to the vulnerability involved in approaching them. Your therapist or another trained professional can help you determine the best way and the best people to seek this type of support with.
Reach out for support with eating disorder therapy
If you are interested in learning more about how I work with disordered eating please feel free to reach out. I offer a free 20 minute phone consultation and I would be thrilled to hear from you and discuss what you are looking for to reach your therapeutic goals.
-Ellie